Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

> Personally, unlike Heidi, I am unconcered about people trying to use 25
> mile races for point chasing and riding their horses into the ground as
> a result.  Simply because people who do this will not be very successful
> at point chasing.  One cannot accumulate many points by blowing the
> tendons on the horse since the horse won't get to go again and the horse
> won't have accumulated anywhere near enough points to win any year end
> award by only having done one 25 mile race.
You have the luxury of being unconcerned about this because you DO try to
take care of your horses, and you don't have to stand and hold the jugs
over the horses of the idiots that do.

My main concern with this is the horse welfare aspect.  We can't plug all
the holes because there will always be idiots.  But this was a BIG hole,
and it needed to be plugged for the sakes of the horses and for the sake
of being proactive for the sport.

It isn't some big philosophical hangup--it was pure and simple a matter of
recognizing that running the distance as a "regular" event was a real
idiot magnet.  The way it is now, it is primarily used for good reasons,
and the unstoppable idiots are much more rare--more on par with that low
level that occurs at the other distances.

Heidi


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Many of the endurance riders in our top echelons of competition, now and in
the past, exemplify the 'common man' not the hierocracy. It is this
possibility, this chance to come to the fore, that makes endurance
competition of the Aussie/American type so much more desirable to part of
the world.
~  Bob Morris

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